Dying is Easy
by Lorata
Summary: After winning her Games by default when the last remaining tribute died in a Gamemaker's trap, Emory of District 2 struggles to feel worthy in a Village full of specacular Victors. Brutus, who never expected to pull a Victor on his first year mentoring, needs to find a way to show his girl she's not only loved, but worthy.
It's two o'clock in the afternoon near the end of August. The trilling of birds has fallen silent under the weight of the heat; Ronan's hounds lie stretched out on the front porch, tongues hanging loose and sides moving rapidly as they pant. Even the flies have stopped buzzing against the windowpane, choosing to walk along the edges of the sill instead. Brutus traps one against the pane with his cupped hand, just because, then opens the window and lets it out.

Outside even the yard has gone quiet, no breeze to swish the pine needles or rustle the grasses. Brutus slides the screen shut and turns away back toward the house; inside it's not much different, the wind chime in the kitchen hangs still and the curtains lie flat, but it's not — quite — peaceful.

Sounds make their way up from the basement; the hollow thump of fists hitting canvas and the jingling of chain, interspersed with tight, controlled grunts. Normally in the middle of the afternoon a fresh Victor would be napping — even Brutus at his most restless had succumbed to the long hours after lunch before the evening breeze wicked away the worst of the heat — but Emory is at the bag again, just like she was yesterday and the day before and the day before that.

Emory holes up in her gym with a punching bag while her mentor wanders around the kitchen at a loss, opening cupboards and shutting them again because he can't go in there. Brutus tried, the first time, but he caught sight of the glistening on her cheeks when she turned toward the stairs, and the anguish that crossed Emory's face at her mentor seeing her cry — well. Brutus can't fix it, he can't go back in time and convince the Gamemakers to give her a final showdown instead of killing off the last remaining tribute as a message to the districts, but he can at least give her privacy for her breakdowns.

Victors shouldn't hide from their mentors — a mentor accepts anything, even weakness — but this isn't about Brutus being ashamed of her. This is about allowing dignity to a girl who had everything she'd trained for since the age of seven snatched away at the last second; a distant cannon without bloodshed, victory trumpets and congratulations blared over the speakers while Emory whipped around, wide-eyed and disbelieving, searching for the final opponent who'd never come. A finale without a showdown is the worst end to a Career-won Games, and Emory might not have taken the longest to starve or freeze to death but it's still not the kind of victory anyone from Two dreams of.

Making it through the Games should be enough on its own — and in the outer districts often it is — but here in Two they're held to a higher standard, by themselves no less than anyone else. No Victor wants eleven years of preparation to culminate in a default win, meaning derision from commentators followed by all but disappearing from the Capitol's radar. For Emory, raised on honour and glory like the rest of them, an ignominious win isn't much better than a noble death.

Funny thing is, it's not like that for the mentor. Brutus wouldn't care if Emory had hidden herself in a cupboard for three weeks and crawled out after everyone else slashed each other to bits, but try telling her that. Her eyes still dig hooks into his chest, pinning Brutus and stealing his breath and his words and everything but empty reassurance when she asked him, her first week out, how this was better than dying with honour.

 _Because you're here_ , he'd thought, useless, soft words that would do nothing to help the raw, wounded edge in Emory's voice or soothe the ache that tried to tear her apart every minute of every day.

Brutus thought, during his recovery when the guilt and confusion and anger battled each other and left him gasping, that he'd felt every emotion he'd ever had coming. He'd thought he'd somehow used his quota for the next decade in those long, shaky months when he vomited out his soul to Odin in horror and his mentor slowly put it all back. He hadn't expected this, day after day of helplessness and and wild, directionless fury that Emory — his Victor, a simple girl from the quarries who lasted through an Arena tailor-made for clever outliers — gets any less than utmost respect and admiration.

You can't punch this away, he's tried, and soon Emory will figure that out for herself but Brutus can't force that revelation on her.

Eventually the sounds die down and the stairs creak; Emory makes her way into the kitchen, heavy-limbed and eyes averted, short hair plastered to her forehead. She tugs open the fridge, which is brand-new and shiny; she squawked when she saw it and asked Brutus if he couldn't have found one used before he told her Victor Affairs handled all that sort of thing. The worst part was he was glad for her shock, because it at least jarred her out of the silence that had enveloped her the whole train ride home.

The fridge is stocked with food the way it always is for new Victors, with the others coming by every few days and dropping off fresh-baked meals in freezable containers, but Emory ignores all that. Instead she reaches for the protein shakes, every bit as boring and gritty as the meals back at the Centre, and without speaking or meeting Brutus' eyes she tips her head back and chugs down half of it before shoving it back onto the shelf.

"Emory," Brutus says, curling his hands into fists. He's let it go this long but it's been too long now. His heart pounds in his throat. "You need to eat something."

Emory freezes with her back to him, the line of her shoulders tightening. "Smoothie's good enough." It's not insubordination, not the way she says it, just a fact; not stubborn or angry, just tired, like a shadow cast in light too dim for proper sharp edges.

"You've barely had anything but smoothies since you got back," Brutus says. Smoothies and unseasoned cuts of meat and vegetables, bland and calorie-dense with little fanfare or effort — exactly the sort of foods she would have eaten at the Centre and nothing more. Not even the fresh fruit she'd get from the trainers for high scores or surprisingly violent behaviour. No treats, no indulgences, none of the rewards a new Victor deserves.

Emory flinches but doesn't turn. "I like the shakes."

"You don't have to earn your food anymore," Brutus says. His fingernails bite his palm. "You're a Victor, not a candidate."

She lets out a long breath, shoulders sagging. "Due respect and all, but I'd rather not."

He could knock her down and sit on her chest and force her to eat, but Brutus knows his Victor better than that. She would comply because her mentor said so, and feel all the more the failure that he had to make her do it. There are worse things in the world than living off a Centre diet until Brutus can figure out how to help her.

"Come spar with me," Brutus says instead. Emory glances back, expression carefully schooled, and Brutus opens up his posture, letting his hands fall loose and unthreatening at his side. "What, you can take on a punching bag but you're scared to take on someone your own size?"

Emory's mouth twitches, just a little. "You're a lot bigger than my own size," she says with mild accusation. "They didn't put me on the pills like you."

Another Victor might make a smart remark about Brutus' likelihood of having children or the size of things that tend to shrink with too much steroid use, but of course Emory doesn't go there. Brutus snorts and rolls up one sleeve, curling his arm and letting his biceps stand out. "This ain't because of the pills, girl, not three years later. Now are we gonna go, or not?"

Emory pauses, fingers twitching at the fabric of her training pants, but finally she lets out a breath. "Sure," she says. "We can head out back."

Brutus resists the urge to attach a condition to it — if he wins then she has to eat a sandwich, or take a nap, or repeat the phrase "I am not nothing" — because Emory is a good, solid girl and would resent being manipulated. Instead he nods and follows her to the door.

* * *

Brutus has never been all that great with words. He uses them like rocks, tools for smashing and bludgeoning, a way to get what he wants without needing any fancy tricks. The trouble comes when he can't use a rock, when the situation calls for something prettier than bashing things open. Odin dislocated Brutus' shoulder the day he tried to skip his medication and Brutus thanked him for it, but Brutus could no more lay a hand on his girl like that than he could haul off and punch her in the face for no reason.

Lucky for him, there's sparring.

Emory is big for a girl, tall and broad and quarry-strong, and she might not be Brutus' size but she's methodical and careful in her fighting. She's not quick or flashy but she knows how to read her opponents, watching with dark, intent eyes that rarely miss a movement. But she's also a Two and a Victor, and she knows how the world works. Brutus beats her not just because he's bigger and saner after three years out but because mentors are meant to win against their Victors, and that's the natural order of things. Brutus is meant to win and so he does; whatever else happens, whatever else went wrong, that hasn't changed. At every turn he blocks; he weathers her blows and moves back in when she feints away, solid and relentless and never giving in.

When Brutus gets her down, pins her by the shoulders against the ground, something in Emory's eyes flashes. She fights him, twists underneath him and shifts her legs to throw him off, but she's not really trying and Brutus doesn't take the bait. He holds her until the fight leaches out of her, but even after she yields he stays put. He's not going anywhere, not if she fights, not if she gives up, and when Emory drops her arms and sinks back against the grass Brutus leans down to touch their foreheads together.

"Hey," Brutus says, still breathing hard from the fight. "You're my girl, you know that."

Emory shuts her eyes tight against the telltale sheen, and Brutus does the same to give her privacy, much as he can when they're this close. "I know," Emory says finally, her voice croaking in her throat. "I just wish you could've had a better one."

"Ain't no such thing," Brutus says savagely, the words tearing themselves out in full lowtown quarry accent because district standard just isn't strong enough. But now is not the time for rocks, and he claps the side of her face and holds her steady until the danger passes.

Emory lies on the lawn for a full minute after Brutus stands up, flat on her back with her arm draped across her eyes. Brutus focuses on brushing bits of dirt and grass from his pants until she stirs and heaves herself to her feet.

"Think I pulled my shoulder," Emory says carefully, and Brutus goes still. He kept a close eye on the fight, watched every blow and gauged every possible injury, and he never wrenched her arm.

But Brutus wasn't Reaped yesterday, and he only nods. "Come on back in, I'll get some liniment," he says gruffly.

They sit on the couch together and Brutus makes a show of checking her shoulder for muscle tears, working the ointment in with rough motions because he spent years learning to kill and he's still working out how to be tender. They don't talk, Emory sitting with her head back against the cushions and her eyes closed, but the silence feels less like the heavy air before a thunderstorm and more like the cool quiet before the morning birds start their chirping.

That night it's another protein shake and a hunk of bread for dinner, but when Brutus slices up an apple and offers it to her without comment, Emory hesitates but finally takes a wedge.

* * *

The phone yanks Brutus out of sleep — he nearly breaks it in his fist, panic shooting through his muscles, but at the last second he remembers and drops it instead. "Yeah?" he he croaks out in a sleep-rasp, rubbing a hand over his eyes and feeling the grit of exhaustion beneath his lids. Games damn it, how could he have crashed so hard? The heat and silence in the house sit heavy like a homespun blanket soaked from rain and straining the washing line.

"Your Victor tried to leave, sir," says the voice on the other line. "We have her at the gate."

"Hold her there," Brutus snaps. He's up and out the front door in seconds, not bothering with his shoes, but halfway down the lane he manages to reel back his frantic pace so he doesn't show up tearing his way across the Village in a panic. Mentors don't panic, and so his heart might be pounding but he swallows the sour taste in his mouth and forces down the churning in his stomach.

Emory's at the gate all right, a big, quiet shadow against the wall, one hand clutching her bicep in a nervous gesture. "I wasn't going to hurt anyone," she blurts out immediately.

Mentor training says that normally a preemptive denial like that is usually bullshit, but Brutus takes a long look at her face, shadowed eyes and furrowed brows, and that isn't what people look like when they want to go take out their demons on someone else's bones. Brutus has more experience with the mirror than to make that mistake.

"Okay," he says evenly. "So what were you doing?"

"I wanted — to see," Emory says, making a helpless gesture. The moon shines bright on her cornsilk-blonde hair, washes out the last of the tan on her skin, mostly gone anyway after months inside. "And I knew you'd tell me it wasn't healthy, but I just — I need to."

Half a dozen possibilities present themselves in Brutus' mind before being rejected, and he shakes off the suspicion that if he'd pulled this Odin would have known what he was doing. His mentor always knew, and here Brutus is swinging around a sledgehammer too large for him and smashing more feet than bedrock. "Tell me," Brutus says instead.

Emory wets her lips, and for a second Brutus reads the 'never mind' in the wince that crosses her features, but he holds her with his gaze and finally she exhales. "The Field," she says, looking away, and oh _shit_. "I was going to go see the Field."

Brutus swallows and counts to five before he answers, to claw back a few seconds of time instead of flinging himself at her and knocking her down and telling her _no fucking way_ right there. "Well, you're right about one thing," he says instead. "That sure ain't healthy."

"I know." Emory still won't look at him, and there's privacy but then there's avoidance, and so Brutus steps in close. He holds her face in his hands and rests their foreheads together, and Emory grips his wrists but doesn't fight him. Her ragged breathing fills the space between them but Brutus doesn't move, keeps on holding her steady. He might not be able to pull her out of the river yet but until then he can at least be her rock. "I don't even have a good reason, I just — I can't stop thinking about it. I need to see it, please."

"Tell me something first," Brutus says, and Emory's eyes flick to his for a second before her gaze drops. "You know the way there on your own?"

Emory opens her mouth, shuts it, tries again. "No."

"You have a plan for how you were gonna find it?" Brutus asks. The Field isn't exactly closed off from the public, since theoretically parents are allowed to visit their kids' graves, but it's no tourist attraction, and the streets don't have signs pointing the way.

This time she tries to pull free, but Brutus holds firm. "I reckon I thought I'd know the way somehow," Emory says, flushing in the pale light. "I — wasn't thinking."

"All right," Brutus says. He claps the side of her face and pulls back. "Come on, I'll get the truck. Your first mistake was trying to walk; you'd still be trying to get there come morning."

Emory grabs his arm when he turns, staring at him in wide-eyed, frowning confusion. "Why?"

Brutus pries her fingers loose, taking the excuse to squeeze her hand for a second before letting it drop. "Because you plan every single thing you do, yet here you are haring off in the middle of the night with no idea where to go like a damn fool. I figure if it's that important to you then you need to do it, unhealthy or no." A little black humour never hurt nobody, and so Brutus raises his eyebrows. "Though most Victors go for overdoing it on ice cream."

Relief and disbelief war across Emory's face, finally coming out in a small smile that hits Brutus right in the chest. "I don't much like ice cream," Emory admits as Brutus uses his pass to open the gate. "Too much sugar, or something. Comes right back up."

"Me too," Brutus says.

He gets the passenger door for her when they reach the truck, and Emory swings herself up into the cab with a practiced ease that Brutus doesn't miss but also doesn't comment on. They haven't talked about her family much yet, a quarrier and a Peacekeeper came to see her in the Justice Building and that's about what Brutus knows, but the fact that Emory gets right in without gawking — unlike Brutus his first time — tells him that her family had a bit more to work with than his did.

They don't talk as Brutus takes the side road down to the Field, and Brutus leaves the radio off. Silence is better than trying to stuff it full to get rid of it, and Emory sits with her forehead against the window and looks out at the lights of town dotting the horizon. Brutus glances over now and then to check on her, but while she's no more animated or talkative than usual, she's at least not dragging the heavy weight today.

Finally they arrive, and Brutus parks the truck and motions for Emory to follow. It's eerie quiet this far out, no trees or rivers or ponds for the birds or frogs to sit in, nothing but the soft swish of grasses as they leave the truck behind and head out toward the open meadow.

The moon shines clear and bright, silvering the tips of the grass and giving the flowers an eerie blue glow. A thin line of fog traces the foot of the mountains and by morning it will likely limn the meadow, but for now it stays in the shadows. Brutus takes Emory down the winding path, and there's no one here to bother but when he speaks he finds himself barely going above a whisper anyway.

"It's not by year, not exactly," he says. Odin taught him about the Field last year, when Brutus applied for mentor training. "It started out that way but Ronan changed it. He figured the kids in the Centre spent enough time in rows, let them sleep in peace. Now each mentor has their own area, more or less."

Emory kneels down at one headstone, presses her fingertips to the smooth granite and traces the letters. "Augusta," she reads slowly. "22." She releases a long breath, and Brutus' hand twitches at his side but he gives her space. After a while she stands, bracing her hands on her thighs, and they keep walking.

They don't head in any particular direction, wandering wherever Emory feels like, and now and then she bends to sound out the name on a headstone before continuing on. Brutus keeps an eye on his Victor but he can't help but get lost now and then. He's never made it out to the Field — you don't, before your first — and this year he would have except for the girl who's walking next to him, hair glimmering in the light.

Finally Emory stops next to the newest stone, smooth black granite without traces of moss, not yet. There's a wreath laid on the top, drying and brittle, and she lowers herself to her knees and sits in front of it. "Apollo," she says, the words little more than breath. Her district partner had been sharp to her solid, razor grins and winks to her frowns. He'd complained about the reduced opportunities for blood in their Arena more than the tricks and traps.

"I didn't like him," Emory says, laying her hand flat against the stone. "He enjoyed it all too much. Thought more about having fun than honour. But at least he died true."

A funny word for it; Apollo had his head smashed in by District 5, one slow, weak blow at a time as he screamed and struggled to free himself from the other boy's trap. By rights Emory should have found his killer and finished him off, but the Gamemakers had done that favour for her.

"He died," Brutus says simply, fighting the shiver in his blood. "He made his sacrifice. Yours is different. Living is harder, always."

"I never thought I'd be chosen," Emory says. "I always thought I wasn't good enough, but it was my job to keep trying until they told me to stop. And then I thought — well, only one comes back even in a Victory year. I never thought it would be me." She bows her head, and this time Brutus does let his hand fall to her shoulder. She doesn't move into his touch but she doesn't shake it off, either, and good enough. "I was ready to die for my country, I swear it."

Apollo wasn't; Brutus didn't have to be his mentor to know that. He'd died spitting out invectives, shocked and furious to the end that things didn't go his way. "Well, maybe that's why you won," Brutus says. The thought of Emory here, lying in the field under a blanket of flowers — he'd chosen cornflowers, not that he could tell you why except for a vague tickle of memory he's too smart to chase — fills him with fear as sure as drowning, but he keeps his head up. "You were ready to die with honour, no take-backs. Not a lot of people can say that. Maybe being strong enough to die well means you were chosen to live instead."

"Because it's harder?" Emory asks. Brutus hums in response, and Emory shifts position, sitting cross-legged with one knee bent and her chin resting against her leg. "Maybe you're right."

Emory falls quiet, and Brutus sighs and drops down beside her. "Here's the thing. We think we know what we're willing to give, but there's always more. That's why winning is just as much of a sacrifice as losing. But I think you're going to be even better living for your country than dying for it."

Emory snorts, as rude a sound as Brutus has ever heard her make, and swipes a hand across her eyes. "You have to say that because you're my mentor."

"I'm going to be glad you're alive no matter what because I'm your mentor," Brutus says. There's no compulsion, no demands of duty that could make him wish otherwise, and no point pretending. "But I don't have to _say_ shit. I could tell you you're lucky to be alive. I could tell you there are twenty-three kids under the ground who wish to be where you are. I could make you feel guilty for feeling guilty, I know you want me to."

He could tell her that he faced eleven districts full of people whose children he'd murdered, stared into faces twisted with rage or blank with apathy and grief, and never felt as hated as the moment when the trumpets for Emory's victory blew and the other mentors turned to stare. Instead Brutus shifts his hand to the back of her neck, squeezing hard. "What I will tell you is a lot of people would do no more good for the world alive than dead, but you're not one of them. There's lots of good needs doing, if you're willing to put in the work."

Emory draws her lower lip between her teeth, gnawing until Brutus taps her chin to make sure she doesn't bite right through. "I didn't give them a good show in the Arena," she says, and it's an old argument but this time her voice creeps up at the end, hesitating instead of diving straight down the way it normally does.

Brutus very carefully forces his voice to stay level. "Here's the thing, though. Being a tribute is all about the Arena. Being a Victor, a good one, is about everything that happens after."

After a while Emory looks down at the flowers on Apollo's grave, still budding but not yet in bloom. They'll bloom when the petals have dropped from the rest of the meadow, putting up a burst of blood-red and violet as the grass starts to turn to autumn gold. "Those are poison," she says in mild accusation.

Brutus laughs even though it's not really funny. "Well, that's Callista for you." When Emory doesn't respond, Brutus slides his hand up her neck, scratching his fingers through the short hair at the base of her skull, half afraid he'll spook her. This time Emory tips her head back into his touch, just a little, and the only reason Brutus doesn't hold his breath is because she'll notice that even more.

Finally Emory stands, and Brutus lets his hand drop. "Okay," she says, hooking her thumbs in her pockets. "Let's go home."

She falls asleep in the truck on the way home, and rather than wake her Brutus takes a long drive through the wide mountain backroads, half hypnotized by the even cadence of her breathing. By the time they pull into the Village the sun is streaking the treetops with pink and gold, filtering between the trunks in long pale beams, and Emory still hasn't stirred.

She blinks awake when Brutus cuts the engine, and he resists the urge to smile at her and have her think he's lost his damn fool mind. "Breakfast?" Brutus suggests. "There's that nut loaf that'll go bad if we don't use it."

A bit of a dirty trick, caching in on Emory's desire not to let things go to waste to combat her lingering reluctance to eat good food, but Brutus is long past caring. "All right," Emory says finally, and she slips out of the truck and turns her face toward the sun.

* * *

The next week Brutus bundles Emory into the truck and takes her out to one of the children's homes affiliated with the Centre. The Program gets a lot of its recruits from orphanages, angry kids with grief or abandonment issues and few prospects looking for a better life and a ticket to glory, and they tend to keep tabs on any group home that sends at least one kid per year. Brutus did a few rounds of his own back in his day, and the director is glad to have him over when he makes the call.

Emory doesn't fidget on the ride over but only because she has the training not to. She sits with her hands in her lap, fingers splayed evenly over her thighs in a telltale sign of focused concentration, but ain't no rule against stewing quietly and Brutus isn't going to push her until she snaps. He rolls down the windows and leans one arm out as he drives, enjoying the tingle of the breeze flowing across his skin. Emory smiles a little and does the same, waving her hand along with the air current, and Brutus grins at her and turns off onto the side road.

The kids, predictably, swarm her as soon as they pull up. Brutus has heard tell of what it's like to live in a home out in the districts, muttered tales from the mentor's circle about daily beatings and not enough food or blankets to go around, but here at least it's not like that. These kids didn't get here because their lives were rosy, but they're free of bruises and the little ones look at Emory and Brutus with wide, open expressions even if the older ones try to hide theirs.

The kids here don't give a damn about how Emory won the Games; all that matters to them are the boxes of goodies that show up once a month. A fair number of them are old enough to remember Brutus and his win three years ago, but for most of the little ones, Emory is their first. Brutus keeps an eye out on the ones who are Reaping age or near enough — Emory took out a twelve-year-old in the bloodbath, and it's hard to tell what might set her off — but the staff keep them from crowding her.

"You're my favourite Victor," says a little girl in a blue dress, sidling up to Emory and putting a hand on her knee.

A boy with two teeth missing rolls his eyes. "She's the only Victor you know," he scoffs. "That don't count."

"That ain't true!" the girl retorts, aiming a kick at his ankle that doesn't come anywhere near. "I could name all the Victors, I just don't feel like it! Miss Emory is best because she's strong, anyhow. What do I have to do to be strong like you, Miss Emory?"

Emory laughs, and for once there's nothing cracking underneath the sound. "You eat what's in front of you so long as it's good for you, even if you think it tastes bad, and you go to bed on time and we'll see."

They've been there near an hour and Brutus is considering wrapping it up when one of the boys drags over a well-worn picture book, pages half falling out, and drops it in her lap. "Read us a story, Miss Emory?" he asks. "Bet nobody's ever got a story read to them by a Victor before."

It's not a bad idea and it's harmless besides, but Emory stiffens. Not enough that any of the kids crawling over her like squirrels take any notice, but Brutus marks how she holds her breath and her eyes widen, just a little. He barely has enough time to kick himself, though — how could he have missed something like that? — when Emory opens the cover and turns to the first story inside. "Why don't we read it together?" she suggests smoothly. "That way everyone gets to have a turn."

The kids crowd around close, and each one takes a page. Emory leads them through it, and Brutus catches the eye of one of the staff and she stands behind, prompting with the harder words whenever one of the kids stumbles. Once they reach the end of the first story and the little lost rabbit finds his way home, the woman reaches down and takes the book back. "All right, all of you, it's time to let the Victors go," she says, ignoring the groans. "We're all very glad she visited and we're grateful for the parcels, aren't we? Let's show her what we practiced."

They all shuffle into a ragged group at the far end of the room — the oldest ones rolling their eyes and scuffing their feet and pretending to be above it all — and belt out an enthusiastic, if off-key, rendition of the Panem anthem. Emory applauds when they finish, the little ones mob her one more time and the bigger ones grin shiftily when she shakes their hands like adults, and finally they're off and back to the truck.

Emory has a basket full of drawings and handmade cards, and she sifts through them as Brutus drives, tracing the letters with her fingers. "I know my letters well enough," Emory says, answering the question that Brutus had been not-asking so loud he may as well have shouted. His hands tighten on the steering wheel but there's no accusation, only the mild matter-of-fact tone Emory uses when she talks about herself. "I can write my name, and I can copy what someone gives me. But." She shrugs, turning over a scribbled picture of herself standing on top of a giant golden hill. "It is what it is."

"You read the names on the stones," Brutus says. He's not arguing, exactly, but the memory sticks sharp in his mind, Emory kneeling and reading out the names of the fallen as they made their way through markers in the Field of Sacrifice.

She shakes her head. "I knew them," Emory corrects him. "We all have to memorize the lists, and like I said, I learned my letters. I knew who fell in what year, all I had to do was look at the first letter, maybe the second, to tell which one it was. It's easy enough to fake, and the Centre don't care so long as you pass the tests all right. No way I would've made it through that storybook, though."

"Shit," Brutus says without meaning to, accidental swearing something he's trying to train himself out of because the Capitol doesn't mind his bloody hands but they'd rather not a dirty mouth. "Well, now I know, I guess." They drive for a while in silence, Emory paging through the drawings, and finally Brutus glances over. "Look, I'm not great at reading myself," he says. "I learned but I didn't like it, and I did the same as you through Residential, mostly just put everything into my head through my ears. Odin taught me proper when I got out. If you like, he'd do the same for you."

His mentor's love of reading isn't something Brutus will ever understand, and it beats him to Twelve and back why anyone would look at a book to see pictures of birds and herbs when you could just walk outside and see them yourself, but even so. It's nice not having a whole part of the world locked away, and with Emory already struggling to see herself as worthy, another accomplishment wouldn't hurt.

Emory hums thoughtfully to herself. "Maybe," she says. "Might be good." She makes it through the back of the pile and sets the papers into the basket, giving them a reverent little pat. "This was nice," Emory says after a while, and Brutus glances at her. "I mean, it's not me they're cheering, they'd cheer anyone who meant they get sugar and butter enough to make cookies every month, but still. Nice."

The lines of her face have softened a bit, the shadows under her eyes less pronounced, and Brutus isn't stupid but he also knows how to take blessings as they come. Nobody ever killed all twenty-three in the first minutes of the Games, and good things aren't any easier to come by. "I'm glad," he says, flicking on the blinker despite the stretch of empty roads on either side as he takes the turn back into town.

* * *

He gets the idea a few days later and tells no one, not even his mentor. Brutus takes his truck into town and checks the Reaping records at the central office in Program headquarters; ten minutes later he's driving back to the Village. Emory doesn't even realize he left; she's sitting on the couch with a picture book Odin gave her, tracing the letters with her finger, forehead furrowed in concentration for once instead of quiet pain.

"How's it going?" Brutus asks her. "Anything good?"

"It's about a rabbit," Emory says, ducking her head, but Brutus doesn't tease her and so she holds it up to show him the cover. "He keeps trying to run away but his mother goes after him. Odin read it to me first so I can remember how it goes, now I got to focus on the letter-sounds. It's hard, but." She waves a hand. "Not Arena-hard."

Brutus almost asks her if she wants to read it to him, but her fingers are tight against the cover and her posture hunched. She's not ready, and the Centre trainers might throw kids in the exhibition ring with only a little preparation but they're done with that here. "I'm gonna see if I can't get that grill working," Brutus says. "Maybe we can have some meat for dinner."

Emory nods and turns back to her book, tucking her legs up beneath her as Brutus heads out to the porch, mind still spinning with his plan.

* * *

Emory frowns as Brutus pulls into the drive and parks the truck, throwing on the parking brake and hitting the locks. "Where are we?"

"C'mon," Brutus says jerking his chin toward the house. He gestures to the basket on the seat between them. "Bring the basket, you know the drill."

"This isn't an orphanage," Emory says, eyebrows still pulled together, but she hooks her arm through the basket handle and slides down onto the ground. Her sneakers crunch on the loose gravel driveway, and they walk together past a small garden toward the house. "This isn't the quarries, either, we're in one of the trade towns, by the looks of it. Who are we visiting?"

"You're right about that," Brutus says, sidestepping the question and Emory's confused glance. "We're up near Parkstone. There's a junction around here, runs the limestone up from Bluffer's Peak to the artisans up north."

Emory hefts the basket higher. "All right, so you're not going to tell me."

Brutus takes a step sideways to knock their shoulders together. "Nope."

The door opens before they reach the stoop, and a pretty, dark-haired woman steps outside. "You're here," she says, one hand coming up to touch her mouth. "I — I still can't believe it, even though you said you were coming. It's like it's not real."

Brutus only nods as Emory's confusion grows, and the smile glows warm in his chest as he savours the moment. "Brought you a few things," he says. "Emory makes a fine apple jam, last of the fall crop, and you ain't tasted rhubarb pie until you've had hers."

The woman stumbles back a step. "After everything you did, here you are bringing more! Snow's mercy, as if you ain't done enough. Come in, come in, our Bethany hasn't been able to sit down all day."

Emory stops, one foot on the stair. "Bethany," she says slowly. "I know that name, why do I know that name?"

"Go on inside and see," Brutus says, and Emory bites her lip but in the end she trusts her mentor — of course she does — and she steps inside.

Brutus counts down from ten as he kicks off his shoes, and he's down to three when Emory sucks in a gasp. "Oh," she says, eyes gone big and wide. "That's — _oh_."

A Reaping-aged girl, pretty and slender without an ounce of quarry blood in her, slips in from the kitchen and steps close to her mother. Bethany Williams, fourteen years old, called in the Reaping of the 52nd Hunger Games. The girl who would've died if Emory hadn't stepped in to take her place.

Her mother gives her a nudge. "Go on, now, this is no time to be shy." She gives Emory a small smile. "Couldn't tear her away from the screen the whole time, you know. Normally I wouldn't let her watch that much, but she said she had to."

"I did have to," the girl bursts out. "I did, I — you went in for me, and you made it through that awful Arena with all those traps and no grass or sky or trees or anything —" Emory inhales a careful breath at the memory, and Brutus doesn't weaken her by reaching out to touch her in front of others but he does take a step close until she swallows and exhales. "I would've died right away, I know I would, but you were so smart. You waited and you figured it out and you won and I'm so happy you made it out. You're brave and strong and — and everything."

A flush crawls up from Emory's throat and takes over her entire face, ears flaming bright red. "I just did my duty," she says, falling back on the stock phrase because the Centre prepared her for grilling in the Capitol and how to smile in the face of a hundred flashbulbs. Gamemakers with their scoreboards and sponsors who smile like vultures and scent for blood, yes, Emory charmed them all with her simple manners and her complete lack of artifice. They trained her for all that, but not this. Not blind, adoring gratitude from the one person with a real connection instead of picking a favourite based on training scores and personality.

"And we're very grateful for it," the girl's mother says, pulling her daughter back and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "It's just the two of us, now that my Blaine's passed on. If I'd lost her — Please, sit down, I'll make you some coffee."

They stay a good hour, long enough that it doesn't feel like they're rushing but not so long that the family feels obligated to ask them to stay for a meal. Emory's still pink around the cheeks and ears when they say goodbye, and Brutus scrawls the address for Victor Affairs on a scrap of paper and hands it over when the girl asks if she can write now and then.

Brutus says nothing once they're back in the truck, waiting as Emory twists around to wave through the back window before the house disappears around a curve. Finally Emory sits back and pulls her seatbelt back into place, letting it snap against her chest and shoulder. "You did that on purpose," she says, glancing at Brutus.

"Damn right I did," he says, and Emory snorts in surprise. "Not everything has to be sneaky. Sometimes there's a thing you need to hear and I'm gonna make sure you hear it."

He waits, fingers tight on the wheel, for Emory to say that it doesn't matter if it was her, they would've been just as glad for any other Career girl to step in, but this time she doesn't. She stares down at her hands instead, running her fingers over the inside of her knuckles, smooth where Remake erased the gashes that the garrotte wire had torn into her skin. Brutus grips the wheel harder to stop himself from covering her hand with his.

"Maybe we could stop by the market," Emory says after a while, still looking down. "I know it's too early for fresh vegetables, but we could get bread and things."

Brutus swallows. "Yeah?"

"You've been cooking a lot," Emory says slowly, and Brutus barely dares to breathe. "I should make you something."

"Emory —"

"I _want_ to make you something," she corrects herself. "Stew, maybe. Something hearty."

Brutus watches the road with an intensity that definitely isn't warranted to keep his eyes from flicking sideways. "They sell cheese down there, real sharp stuff. Don't need much to get the flavour, you just sprinkle some on top and it melts right in. You ever have cheese in stew?"

"No, ain't never," Emory says. They'll have trained the quarry-area grammar out of her in the Program the same as Brutus, but just like with him the longer she's home the more creeps back in. "But it sounds good. Show me what's good and I'll grab some."

It's the first she's mentioned using her stipend on anything for herself, and ahead the sun glitters on the distant mountaintops as Brutus pulls the truck into town. "Sounds like a plan to me," he says.


End file.
